Consulting Services

My experience and education has provided me with an excellent background to service a wide variety of students. In addition to my experience within the speech and language realm, I have an extensive background in child development, grade level curriculums, development of higher level language, reading and family issues.

I am available for consultation, evaluation or short term substitution, north and west of Boston. I can provide you with my credentials, resume, recommendations and rates upon request. Contact me by phone 617-893-2439 or e-mail theschoolspeechtherapist@gmail.com

3 Comments

I work as a special education director for Narragansett Regional out in the north central region of the state. We belong to an area group of districts that are trying to pool resources for professional development costs to bring more meaningful PD to our staff. In this effort we are looking into setting up specific training for our related services providers for full and half day PDs. We would be open to hearing about possible topics, but one in particular interest is how to have SLPs working in the classrooms more. If there is any information that you could share, that would be wonderful.
Thanks

Hello Dr Salovardos,
I think it is great that you are looking for more meaningful PD for your special education staff. It has been an issue where I work and they do try. We have both short and long PD programs through out the year where I work. The SLPs have been allowed to use some of that time to collaborate about the overall program, generate smart goals, review testing procedures, presenting difficult cases, share information on conferences we’ve attended, report on transitioning students and most recently develop an inservice to present to teaching assistants about our role, skills we address, accommodations/modification we might suggest and what they can do to help.
I’m not a huge advocate of in-class services but I do like going into classrooms on occasion. Speech and language services are therapy services and address developing/improving a students underlying language needs so they can independently access the curriculum. Sometimes that can be done in a classroom but most of the times it’s just not therapeutic enough. With that said, I have never worked in a school system that provided enough collaboration time with teachers to create a true co-teaching experience. Most of the time SLPs end up functioning as glorified aids in classrooms unless true collaboration is set up and SLP caseloads are reduced. I like going into the classroom to see what is going on and observe the kids. In terms of curriculum, I might be able to support a long term project in therapy but more than likely because of mixed groups and limited time with students it is hard to do. My suggestion is to make sure the SLPs are part of developing any program you wish to implement.
Other inservice programs that I’ve attended that were memorable and beneficial ….LIPS training, having the school attorney talk on 504/IEP/liability, we had someone talk to us about streamlining the IEP process, a behavior specialist (I can get her name)…..I guess there isn’t that many. If I think of more I will let you know. I don’t think we as SLP collaborate and share ideas as well as we could. I do believe that time together, with a purpose could be very beneficial to your therapists and district.
If you didn’t notice I have written a book for administrators called The School Speech Language Pathologist, an Administrator’s Guide to understanding the role of the SLP in schools along with strategies to aid staffing, workload management and student success. Some of the information provided in the book highlights how SLPs can be used more efficiently and work as a team. I know of one special education director is using some of the suggestions in the book to make some changes to their scheduling procedures and service delivery.
If you would like to talk more in-depth please feel free to contact me directly through my email theschoolspeechtherapist@gmail.com. If you want to your SLPs to present an inservice to your TAs, I have a template for that to start the process.

I came across Teresa’s blog and your query regarding related service topics for PD days. I would first like to thank Teresa for opening up her blog to other professionals and to you for looking into the PD topic needs of related service providers in your district.
I am a PT with 25+ years providing school based services. I support Teresa that inclass support is effective ONLY if the teacher and therapist have had time to collaborate. Having worked in school districts, I realise that the logistics of having these collaborations is the biggest challenge. I had the opportunity to introduce the 3:1 model in one district with administrative support. The intent was for all related service providers devote one week of the month to collaborate on student needs- basically services done on behalf of the student which includes collaboration that is required for inclass support. For more information on this topic, please feel free to contact me at bpillai@playtl.com.
Thank you Teresa for this opportunity!

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Welcome to The School Speech Therapist

This site provides information on speech and language development and remediation, for parents, teachers and administrators. This is also a place where therapists can network, share ideas, consult with each other and express concerns.

Strong language skills will not only aid success in school but in life as well.